"When you stay too long in the same place, things and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benefit." --Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night.

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television."
― Woody Allen

Seriously, it is one of the biggest places to talk about non-D&D RPGs I know of. I try to make it my last stop given that I don't want to support their moderation scheme, but sometimes it's the best place to ask a question.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 27, 2021, 07:41:16 PM

Quote from: GeekEclectic on January 27, 2021, 07:39:24 PM
There were good times before everything went to shit.

This describes about 50% of everything in life. The other 50% just starts out as shit and usually stays that way.

I object!

Sometimes something starts out as shit, and then gets worse.

Hmmm, what? Did you just discover this?

Quote from: Theory of Games on January 27, 2021, 02:41:50 PM
WTF?

I want to be sorry for rpg net in a lot of ways but, they've embraced banning people just because their ideas differ from the mods.

And I find it incredible that a group that claims the California Bay Area would do this. I'm from the Bay Area and .... WOW. Wow. How can a site dedicated to tabletop rpg be so ..... Anti-RPG?

According to some designers and reviewers I talked to long ago. Its possible RPGnet was never really about RPGs as they seem to really have it in for designers in particular. And even if they love you today and you can do no wrong. Tomorrow you will be demonized and banned. And this undercurrent of tension has been a part of RPGnet a long long time. Completely perplexing.

This isnt like say BGG where they truely have no fucking idea what an RPG is and are still a haven for the extremist storygamers and the Cult of Ron that refuses to die and continues to undermine RPGs and because probably upwards a quarter of the members are rampant dice-o-phobes. So over there their idea of what an RPG is is effectively "Everything on Earth" because "you are playing a role! And that makes it a really real RPG!"

Conversely I have never had any trouble with RPGnet other than a rare few idiot posts that are easily dismissed and so far never had any trouble with the mods. Whereas I've seen various problems with the BGG staff though rarely had problems with them directly up till they made a RPG staff of a creep who tried to dox me and their covert censoring of any games they disapprove of.

BGG is what RPGnet wanted to be. And BGG wants to extend its grasp to RPGs. Luckily thats not likely to happen considering the absolute mess they have made of the RPG section. G'luck trying to search for anything!

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on January 27, 2021, 02:53:18 PM
I walked away from rpg.net a long time ago. I think it's a place best left ignored. It certainly has no relevance to my gaming.

This. The last relevant social exchange I had with them was back in 2009 at Their GenCon party when Piratecat showed up. They seemed very moderate then, and still talked about gaming issues without censoring discussion participants. Once I found that Skotos had invested money into RPG.net, I knew they were done.

Quote from: GameDaddy on January 28, 2021, 03:12:13 AM

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on January 27, 2021, 02:53:18 PM
I walked away from rpg.net a long time ago. I think it's a place best left ignored. It certainly has no relevance to my gaming.

This. The last relevant social exchange I had with them was back in 2009 at Their GenCon party when Piratecat showed up. They seemed very moderate then, and still talked about gaming issues without censoring discussion participants. Once I found that Skotos had invested money into RPG.net, I knew they were done.

Alright, you got me curious.  What was wrong with Skotos?  I know nothing about them, but I just glanced at their website and saw the "we're shutting down, bye!" message.  The basic idea of the site looked interesting, but I didn't look in any depth.

Quote from: GeekEclectic on January 27, 2021, 07:39:24 PM
Sometimes I miss my friends a little. There were good times before everything went to shit.

Imo do not feel any regret.

They decided with eyes open and willingly turn rpg.net into the regressive and repressive site that it is now.

Made worse that many who go to the site are also willingly part of it being as it is. For fear of being banned they threw away and all self-respect. I'm too damn old for that kind of high school teenage bullshit. I'm just surprised that the OP finally realized how bad the site really is. I wonder if he truly is surprised or it's just an act. Rpg.net has gone downhill for about ten years or more. So one has to be living in a  cave to just realize it imo.

You guys remember when the most radical thing about RPG.net forums was that they were kinda sorta the "Anti-D20" forum?

Pepperidge Farm remembers...

Quote from: BronzeDragon on January 28, 2021, 12:57:47 PM
You guys remember when the most radical thing about RPG.net forums was that they were kinda sorta the "Anti-D20" forum?

Pepperidge Farm remembers...

I remember that too.

The golden age, the wild west days, those were really pretty short lived and long past now.

Quote from: Mishihari on January 28, 2021, 06:55:03 AM

Alright, you got me curious.  What was wrong with Skotos?  I know nothing about them, but I just glanced at their website and saw the "we're shutting down, bye!" message.  The basic idea of the site looked interesting, but I didn't look in any depth.

Skotos was a storytelling/narrative website founded by Europeans (mostly) with very deep pockets in the 90's. In it's original incarnation it was a phenomenal place, one where one could go online and working with other contributors, create these fantastic interactive stories online. Part RPG, part MUD, part LARP, it was a website ahead of it's time by more than a couple decades. The only problem was, the founders had some very unusual ideas about intellectual property, and about fantasy gaming in general, and as it evolved, they worked so that only their "narratives" and "goals" became the narratives and goals that everyone was supposed to adopt when creating interactive online experiences, and they tried to force us to adopt their agendas and goals with of course... predictable results. They also claimed all IP from anything and everything written on their site, so of course, I stopped writing, very shortly after I started.

I had actually joined RPG.net about the same time, and back then, it was a pretty much normal  gaming website supporting 3e and lots of indy gaming. There was a wide variety of viewpoints, constant, high quality new game reviews, and an atmosphere of Renaissance brought about by the WOTC buyout of TSR and the imminent release of 3e with open gaming included. It was a fun optimistic place where one could go to learn about RPGs in general, D&D 3e and a host of cool and interesting Indy games.

Around 2005-2006 I had my first incident of being censored over on RPG.net where some discussion threads were arbitrarily closed before the discussions were naturally finished. In 2008 I attended a party at GenCon hosted by PirateCat from RPG.net where we met him in person. He had thrown the party because more conflicts were happening online over on RPG.net that he wasn't understanding, and he wanted all the Americans on RPG.net to get together for what basically amounted to a peace conference. Unfortunately the mods that were creating controversy, of course didn't attend, or at least didn't attend when me and Koltar were there. PirateCat was all about advocating for peace and reasoned discourse, so was pretty cool to hang out with. If any contentious mods were there, they were incognito, and very civil, unlike when they were online. Wait, maybe that was the Enworld party...

Anyway, in 2009 I learned that Skotos had either bought RPG.net, or had founded it. Then I knew what was going to happen at RPG.net becuase it had already happened on Skotos. Basically they drove off all their best mods, and most of their visitors with their Cthulu based ideology about gaming and gamers, and Skotos collapsed into an echo chamber of insanity and despair. 

My gut feeling is there a consortium of Euro gamers and business folk who think they own RPGs becuase you know, every decent RPG was based on Tolkien... and all our bases belong to them lolollololollol!!!!  ....and they keep interfering in the American gaming Industry, Kinda like how Eurogame companies have taken over most of the gaming and RPG distribution channels here in the States over the last two decades... and they don't want FLGS to truly succeed... They want Megacorps and the olde great printing houses of yore to succeed. Oh, they don't play nice, either, and destroy any possible company that is competing with them, whenever they can...

Quote from: David Johansen on January 28, 2021, 05:25:28 PM
The golden age, the wild west days, those were really pretty short lived and long past now.

Indeed, I just downloaded the Wushu Skidoo article series from there as a precaution.  If anyone there ever looks back at it, they'll probably shit themselves over the 'cultural appropriation' of the adventure ideas.

Quote from: GameDaddy on January 28, 2021, 06:33:45 PM
Around 2005-2006 I had my first incident of being censored over on RPG.net where some discussion threads were arbitrarily closed before the discussions were naturally finished. In 2008 I attended a party at GenCon hosted by PirateCat from RPG.net where we met him in person. He had thrown the party because more conflicts were happening online over on RPG.net that he wasn't understanding, and he wanted all the Americans on RPG.net to get together for what basically amounted to a peace conference. Unfortunately the mods that were creating controversy, of course didn't attend, or at least didn't attend when me and Koltar were there. PirateCat was all about advocating for peace and reasoned discourse, so was pretty cool to hang out with. If any contentious mods were there, they were incognito, and very civil, unlike when they were online.

Are you confusing rpg.net with EN World? PirateCat is mostly known for being a EN World moderator/admin and story hour author.

Still remember the good days of RPGnet, 2000-2005 or so. The moderation slowly got more strict and all the fun seemed to drain away. They used to have flamewars, for gods sake, and now everyone is so afraid that the secret police will take them away that no real opinions are expressed.

Quote from: Pat on January 28, 2021, 06:58:50 PM
Are you confusing rpg.net with EN World? PirateCat is mostly known for being a EN World moderator/admin and story hour author.

ya, that was the Enworld party, but I remember talking about RPG.net with some of the mods there.